“With the United States progressing toward greater social security, toward more and better education, toward better physical and mental health, it is inevitable that the economic causes for anti-Semitism will recede,” Oscar R. Ewing, Federal Security Administrator, declared here today at a luncheon tendered in his honor by the American Association for Jewish Education. He was presented with a Certificate of Merit by the organization.
Mr. Ewing emphasized that he believes that “anti-Semitism, like all other unreasonable and dangerous complexes, stems partly from economic and partly from emotional causes.” More than 100 Jewish communal leaders were present at the presentation of the certificate to Mr. Ewing for his leadership” in the fight for the betterment of the lot of the common man, “an “ardent worker in the field of education,” and as an “emissary of good will from the people of the United States to the people of Israel.”
Michael A. Stavitsky, president of the Association, referring to Mr. Ewing’s recent visit to Israel, said: “The common bond between the Jews of America and the Jews of Israel lies in our common cultural and religious heritage, our interest in Jewish education. The effectiveness of Jewish education in the United States will depend to a large extent on the effectiveness of Jewish education in Israel.” Mr. Ewing, he pointed out, has given considerable aid to education in Israel by making available a team of American educators who will spend several months in that country studying its problems and advising its educational authorities.
Accepting the citation, Mr. Ewing pointed out that the problems of education in Israel are in a large measure similar to the problems that education has had to face in the United States. “In a single classroom it is sometimes possible to find children from 25 different countries. The educators of Israel have a gigantic job on their hands.
“Many of Israel’s problems have not yet been solved,” Mr. Ewing continued, “but if anyone can solve them, the people of Israel can. There is an atmosphere of pioneering that would be recognized by any of our old timers who saw the American West spring up from wilderness almost overnight. It seemed to me that the people of Israel considered themselves to be waging a war against time that was even more desperate than their struggle for independence. I think they will win that war.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
